Egypt aims to restore normal production at its natural gas fields by next summer, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said on Thursday, signalling the government is moving to settle its arrears with production companies.

Madbouly told a news conference that production had fallen because of the arrears, but did not say how much the government owed nor when it might be repaid.

Sources told Reuters in March that the government had set aside up to $1.5 billion for payments to foreign oil and gas companies operating in the country. The arrears built up during a long-running foreign currency shortage that has since eased.

Egypt has been grappling with power shortages amid high demand for cooling systems in the summer. The country generates most of its electricity from burning natural gas.

The government halted so-called load-shedding power cuts in July after some natural gas shipments arrived.

"Electricity load-shedding cuts won't return again," Madbouly said, adding the government had set aside $2.5 billion to ensure that.

He said there were also plans to bring an Egypt-Saudi power grid link online in a first phase by the summer of 2025.

(Reporting by Nayera Abdallah and Nadine Awadalla in Dubai, Momen Saeed Atallah in Cairo; Editing by Michael Georgy and Mark Potter)